Forgotten Acquaintance

Urine-coloured cocktails. High-pitched clinkings of wine glasses. Conversations that gets louder by the minute.

The background music of the televised fireworks sings gloriously:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

You scan the room, from one lustrous wall to the next, imagining how each face would look if not for the constantly changing light. The people on the dance floor throw their limbs out like insects under a hypnotic spell while the anesthetized world outside awaited beyond the curtains. The trees are bare, like naked mannequins. The stars shone with their own, self-produced light - they need not a chandelier or disco balls to illuminate their glowing bodies.

Ever since that accident, all fragments of memory had left you, what remains are the condensed essence of your past in the form of distilled emotions. 

What you felt now was utter disgust. 

The abandoned children play in the corner of the grand hall - their self-contained chatter isolated from the drunken hysteria around them. You watch as your wife, in a bloody crimson dress press a lazy kiss on a tall stranger. 

"Papa!" cried a muffled voice. 

A small face hurries towards you, framed by two braids held together with pins and clips and bands. A stream of blood pulses down the girl's face, dripping down her outstretched hands. 

"It's alright, it's just a nosebleed," you assured the girl. 

Just as your eyes scanned the ballroom for its bathroom, hidden amidst a labyrinth of round tables, bobbing hands and tangled limbs, a voice from behind you said, "Here". 

A pack of tissues held by an outstretched hand unadorned by bracelets or trinkets. Equally unembellished was the pointed face that had spoken, surrounded by hair like a curtain which parted to reveal two silver gems dangling from her earlobes. With her pale, untanned skin and plain black dress, she resembled a piece of monochromatic relic from the past amidst the promiscuous and vibrant present. A wrap-around scarf flutter like the wings of an angel with the slightest movement. 

You feel...surprised and familiarity at the same time. 

What have you forgotten? 

She's just a stranger, you tell yourself. Don't embarrass yourself. 

A burst of scarlet and gold rains down from the sky outside. 

The Night Five Years Ago

"Stop! What are you doing!" 

"One more, please," you murmured. "Just one last one."

She snatched your red Campari sharply away from you. You reached for her, but you can barely make out the silhouette of her slender figure. The air is becoming heavy, viscous, hot. You were breathing bricks. The furniture in the balcony felt funny, more like reptilian skin than wood. 

"Stop!" she yelled. 

You leaned further out towards the balcony. The wind felt colder and fresher when your centre of gravity is just connected precariously by flesh that, when dampened by alcohol, feels rotten and bruised. Your feet left the ground and for a transitory moment, you fluttered downwards, just like a piece of newspaper amidst the towering edifices of glass and metal. 

The bartender rushed out into the proliferating cold and upon seeing the commotion there, proceeded to call an ambulance. 

***

To your surprise, you woke up remembering little. Just the bare essence. Memories distilled as emotions that you recollected preciously. 

You woke up to your mother reminding you of your love for Rolex watches. Your friends point out the expensive cars that you had once owned ...and discarded. Your girlfriend came to you swinging a Prada bag that you had gifted to her for the previous Valentine's day. 

Worst of all, they've said that you had lost your job in the three weeks whilst recovering from your injuries. 

Tonight

After the blood stopped and your daughter hurried away, you and the woman spent the night watching the televised fireworks and bodies precipitating off their heat.

"You don't like it here, do you?" smirked the woman. 

"No, not really," you replied. 

"I bet they never told you about us, but I'll always remember you. Maybe when I become a grandma, and you a grandpa, what I remember will just become a sad memory."

"I'm the start of all this," she said, pointing a finger gun to her head. 

"I'm sorry?" you said.

"That's good, I like it this way." she resumed, "Now that we are just strangers. Anyways, happy new year. New year, a new beginning - for the both of us, I guess."

You opened your mouth to speak, but she has promptly walked away. 

What you felt was utter confusion. 

That night, you drove home, a sleeping daughter at the back and a drunk wife by your side who snored sonorously. You passed by light posts after light posts, without knowing, or remembering, the stranger's name or phone number. Illuminated by the red traffic light and light posts, your wife's sunken face and extreme pallor remain unblemished by the lurid maroon powder she had dusted on her cheeks. 

The Night Five Years Ago

It was New Years Eve. The first fireworks blossomed in the sky at eight-o'clock. She emerged under the bus stop and pecked you lightly on the cheek, smelling of a monsoon. Yet, over the city lies the sweet, rotting odour of yesterday's trash. The two of you navigate through the endless labyrinth of crisscrossed streets towards the bar, shoulders touching. Your heart throbs at the unwavering discontent that permeates like the cold weather here. Your girlfriend is at one of her wretched parties again, so you turn around and look at her intently as the traffic turned from green to red. 

"I know already," she told you. "I know that you got fired today."

The light turned green and you pulled her towards the bar, grateful for the opportunity to disregard her blunt statement. 

Money was never the problem for you, after all, you were the golden child of the family, cash rained down on you from the sky like fireworks. But employment asserted your self-confidence, assured you of your myriad capabilities and allowed you to see the world beyond the superficial glamour. Your girlfriend had never seen the necessity of it. Yet, the woman next to you perfectly understood the symbiosis of you and employment with each crooked word you uttered. 

It was more like a cumulation of events the climaxed on today. The gradual awareness of a love that could be best encapsulated as superficial. The dawning awareness of your identity as a son who perhaps sees a random stranger on the streets more often than his father. 

You drank shot after shot without eating. The woman, your colleague, your friend listened with patience. 

"Look, maybe it's a good thing," she said. "A new year, a new beginning for you."

You choked down another shot. The air on the bar's balcony is condensing and solidifying as the thermometer reading drops. 

"Thank you," you said, slurring heavily. "You always listen to me and welcome me back to reality like winter sakura as the first flecks of snow descend upon me." 

"You've had too much to drink," she remarked. Then she added, "you should become a poet."

"Why do you even care though? Sometimes I wonder what will happen if I look back when I'm married and you're married and all settled with kids and the whole package deal. Will you still remember me?" 

"Of course I'll always remember you."

"You're always so kind. Perhaps this will always be a sad memory when time passes when I become just an old acquaintance."

You shuffled towards the edge of the balcony, holding a red Campari. The street lamps spluttered golden beams of light everywhere. 

"Stop! What are you doing!" 

Inside, the live choir sings:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?